What mortal indeed.
I return to my obsidian tower and pace the empty halls like a caged beast. Every surface reflects my haggard appearance—eyes dimmed to copper instead of gold, skin losing its ember-glow, movements lacking their usual predatory grace.
The contract ledger sits open on my desk, pages fluttering in an unfelt wind. Ilyra's name glows faintly on the parchment—ten months remaining before collection comes due.
Ten months of this agony, and I'll only see her on the day she dies?
I close my eyes and reach out through the shadows, searching for any trace of her presence. The thread that once connected us pulses weakly, distant but unbroken. She's alive. Safe.
And she hasn't called.
39
ILYRA
The chill nips at my fingertips as I work the soil, turning earth that's grown stubborn with approaching winter. My herb garden stretches in neat rows behind the house—chamomile and feverfew, willow bark and elderflower. What started as desperate necessity has become something resembling purpose.
"Clever girl, growing medicine when the Old Henrik moved to Podril Ridge." Mrs. Aldric had said that just yesterday, counting out copper coins for a poultice that eased her husband's joint pain. "Your father would be proud."
The words warmed me more than the payment. Pride, not pity. Respect earned through work, not charity extended to the demon girl who disrupted a wedding.
I pull another weed from around the comfrey roots, marveling at how the settlement's narrative shifted so neatly. The demon appeared because of dark elf corruption—everyone agrees on that now. Bram and his guards fled like the cowards they were, taking their tainted influence with them. Good riddance to bad blood, as old Henrik puts it.
They don't know I summoned Azrathiel. They see his intervention as divine justice, not infernal contract. The irony tastes bitter some days, sweet others.
The wind picks up, rattling the dried stalks I've left standing for seed collection. Winter approaches with teeth bared—I can smell it in the air, sharp and clean. Soon I'll need to harvest the last of the hardy roots, bundle the final herbs for drying.
My hands work automatically, muscle memory guiding the harvest while my mind drifts. It always drifts to him as twilight approaches. During daylight hours I can maintain focus, lose myself in the rhythm of work and trade. But when shadows lengthen and the house grows quiet, the echo starts.
It's subtle—a warmth that shouldn't exist, a presence that flickers at the edge of perception. Sometimes I catch myself turning toward empty corners, expecting to find gold-flecked eyes watching from the darkness. Sometimes I wake reaching for warmth that isn't there.
The contract thread still pulses between us, faint but unbroken. Ten months remaining until collection. Ten months of this strange half-life, neither fully alone nor truly accompanied.
I straighten, brushing soil from my skirt, and survey the evening's work. Three baskets full of late-season herbs, enough to keep the settlement's minor ailments at bay through the cold months ahead. Honest work. Necessary work.
The kind my father would approve of.
"Practical girl," I murmur to the gathering dusk, using his voice. "Always thinking ahead."
But even as I gather the baskets, even as I plan tomorrow's preparations, the echo pulses stronger. Like a heartbeat that isn't mine, like breath held too long in empty rooms.
Somewhere in shadow and flame, he thinks of me.
And despite everything—despite the choice I made to let him go, despite the life I'm building without him—I think of him too.
That's why I nearly believe it's hallucination when I turn around and see Azrathiel standing in my garden.
The twilight plays tricks—shadows stretching long between the herb rows, making shapes that shouldn't exist. But the way he stands perfectly still among my carefully tended plants, the way starlight catches the ember-veins beneath his skin, the way those gold-flecked eyes find mine with unerring precision?—
This is no trick of tired eyes.
"Ilyra."
My name falls from his lips like a prayer answered, and the basket slips from nerveless fingers. Lavender and chamomile scatter across the pebbled path, purple blooms and white petals mixing with darker earth.
"You're here." The words escape as barely more than breath.
He steps forward slowly, each movement deliberate as if approaching something fragile. His boots crush the spilled herbs, releasing their scent into the cooling air—sweet lavender, bitter chamomile, the green smell of broken stems.